Thursday, 6 August 2026

Why My Nan Exploded Her Toilet - the half-&-half comics by kids


Three days and six libraries in the various suburbs of Swansea produced these six smashing comics. And can you spot the unusual similarity in their compositions? Go on, have a closer look. Four out of five of them have an interesting layout, for a very specific reason.


Day one was Clydach and Gorseinon libraries. And it was at that very first library I discovered they only had a small copier, with just an A4 plate. Meaning I couldn't reduce the A3 cover artwork down as I would normally do. All I could do was treat it as two A4 pages and copy them two-up on a page, resulting in a gap between the top and bottom of the page. Here, on Psychopathic Murderer, I rather "hung a lampshade" on it, as they say in TV Tropes, and made a feature of the gap in the middle. But as the week progressed I tried to be more subtle about it. (Gorseinon Library had a full sized copier).


Can you spot which library, out of Llansamlet and Morriston, had the A4 copier and which had the A3? See, you can't even spot the join. Skill.


Third day of libraries, second day of Marvel classic cover homages, and first day where both copiers were only A4s, so they both needed a gap in the middle. I'm very pleased with how I disguised the join on the Dogman cover (the hat is just above the join, the buildings below go right up to it), though it does look a bit weird on the Hulk one. The fact is, in actual design, you almost always have something interesting smack bang in the centre of the page, and it's really quite odd to leave a gap there.

The celebrities these six groups of kids chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson (the scary old evil version, three times), Simon Cowell, Ronaldo, and I Show Speed (a Youtuber).

Sunday, 2 August 2026

Book Sales August


 2nd August - Liverpool Book fest - 25 books + 10 comics (£322)

7 x Romeo col
4 x Richard col
1x FM
1 x PODS
4 x MNDT (sold out)
2 x Elain col (sold out)
2 x Elain bw (sold out)
1 x Joseph col
1 x Tales From Bible (sold out)
1 x Doctors colouring
1 x Euro vol 2 colouring
10 x Shakes comic (sold out)

3rd August - Clydach & Gorseinon Libraries - 8 books (£98)

3 x Romeo col
1 x Richard col
1 x PODS
3 x Kids comics

4th August - Morriston & Llansmalet Libraries - 1 book, 1 comic (£18)

1 x Romeo col, 1 x Shakes comic

5th August - Brynhyfryd & Penlan Libraries - 1 book, 1 comic (£12)

Friday, 31 July 2026

Middle Aged Men & other stories - a week of comics by kids


A week-full of comics by kids in Rhymney, The Hive Worcester, Cockerton and Darlington libraries, and Wollaton and Nottingham Central libraries.


Ysgol Y Lawnt summer school, Rhymney



The Hive in Worcester, morning and afternoon classes. And, gawd help me, I drew a new flipchart image each time, and gave them away to the kids. Because I was handing the tickets myself, I figured the venue was less invested in the classes so they wouldn't be bothered about keeping the flipchart image. Their systems were so Kafka-esque that getting photocopies done was a real headache. I had to open an account with Worcestershire libraries, then put money on my library card, then used that to bill the photocopies to. Singularly the most convoluted process I've had to go through to make the kids' comics.


Cockerton Library in the morning, Darlington Library in the afternoon. And as well as producing two sterling comics, they bought more books than any other place I've visited this month. 


Wollaton Library in the morning, Nottingham Central Library in the afternoon. And Middle Aged Men must be one of the most unusual titles of the season.

The celebrities these seven groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Michael Jackson (scary evil old version), Michael Jackson (young version), Mr Beast, Harry Kane, David Attenborough, Ronaldo and Jackie Chan.


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